Washington – Former president George W Bush abruptly cancelled a speaking engagement planned for Saturday after learning that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had also been invited to attend.
Bush spokesman David Sherer on Friday said ‘the former president has no desire to share a forum with a man who has willfully and repeatedly done great harm to the interests of the United States.’
Bush had six months ago accepted the invitation to speak at the Young President’s Organization Global Leadership Summit in Denver, a gathering of young chief executives.
Assange was also apparently invited, though he is being held in London pending extradition to Sweden to face charges for sexual offences.
Many US politicians and the government officials have condemned WikiLeaks and its founder Assange for releasing thousands of private US diplomatic cables and Pentagon documents from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.